Games: Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike released this week on XBLA/PSN

This week, Capcom released Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike for XBLA and PSN. Originally released in 1999, 3rd Strike, and for that matter the entire Street Fighter III line, was met by fans with a very tepid reaction, as it introduced a slew of new characters and gameplay mechanics, including the parry. As someone who has never played a Street Fighter III game, I’ve always been intrigued by the beautiful 2D visuals and underlying complexity. When you add in the very affordable $15 price tag on XBLA and PSN, this game looks like quite the pickup.

To this day, I still cannot watch this video without getting goosebumps. Even without knowing the difficulty of what’s happening on screen, I find myself completely enraptured by the emotion of the crowd.

I’ve always found the idea of “competitive gaming” or “e-gaming” incredibly appealing, but not since Super Smash Bros. Melee have I found a game I wanted to sink hours into just to gain a competitive edge. Will this be the one to finally hook me or will I need to wait until CS:GO for that sweet combination of competitive gameplay and tight game mechanics?

See, I’m normally the opposite. I’d rather play against real people because the AI in fighting games is usually really unfair. The last fighting game I tried to get into (MK) had poor net code, so I just gave up on it.